


Tears

by torestoreamends



Category: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Spoilers, Malfoy Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 09:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13233099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torestoreamends/pseuds/torestoreamends
Summary: Sometimes at the play stuff happens that breaks our hearts. Yesterday James Howard did one of those things. In the office scene, Scorpius was crying even harder than usual, and Draco reached out his thumb and wiped away one of his tears, then kept rubbing his thumb and forefinger together like he couldn’t believe his son’s actual tears had been there.Anyway, emancipare wouldn’t stop giving me feels about it, so over lunch this happened… My first angst of 2018!





	Tears

The last time Draco saw his son cry was when he was a baby, and too young to know any different. Maybe Scorpius has cried since then, in private, hidden from the sight of the world and most importantly Draco, but he would never show any sign of it. He would dry the tearstains off his clothes, wash his face, vanish the sodden handkerchiefs. The Scorpion King doesn’t cry.

But now here he is. Scorpius. Standing in Draco’s office and crying. They’re fierce tears, the sort of tears Astoria used to cry when they were alone at home, of frustration and anger and upset and a desperate passion to change things.

This isn’t his son. This isn’t the boy he’s used to. His son is cold and stoic and would never be saying any of these things: “The Malfoys, the family you can always rely on to make the world a murkier place”; “I don’t want to be who I am”.

Draco feels lost. He doesn’t know what’s happened to Scorpius. He doesn’t know how they’ve got here, from someone so confident in himself and his position to this boy who seems so fiery in his hatred of everything he and their family stand for. And yet, Draco has never before felt more familiarity with Scorpius. He’s never felt more connection to him. He’s certainly never, in all Scorpius’s life, seen so much Astoria – so much light and hope and goodness – in him. He suddenly very much trusts him.

“You know what I loved most about your mother?” He asks.

Scorpius shakes his head, watching Draco with uncertainty.

“She could always help me find light in the darkness. She made the world...” He gestures to Scorpius. “What was the word you used? Murky?”

Scorpius’s eyes shine, glazed with tears and curiosity and desperate hope – hope that seems to be directed at Draco, like Scorpius is determined to believe in him. “Did she?” He breathes.

Draco reaches out on impulse and lifts Scorpius’s chin with the palm of his hand. He looks into his eyes, which are simultaneously afraid and overwhelmed. Another tear dribbles down his cheek and Draco lets go of him and wipes it away with his thumb. The salt wet stains his finger and he looks down at it. Those tears are so real, so raw, and he wants to keep wiping every single one of them away until everything is better, until the world is fit for this bright, hopeful boy inhabiting his son’s body.

“There’s more of her in there than I thought,” he says, then he turns and walks away because he can’t look at Scorpius anymore. He doesn’t have the power to change the world for him, just like he didn’t have the power to change it for Astoria. All he’s ever been able to do is hold his ground, play his part, try to make their small part of the world safe, and wait for an opportunity.

Maybe this boy is an opportunity. Maybe _his son_ is an opportunity. Scorpius, with fire in his eyes and his heart, who asks questions about the dead heroes of this world, and steps out of line in a way that Draco has never seen anyone else dare. This – Scorpius’s life and health and safety – isn’t a sacrifice he can make, he’s not strong enough, but he gets the feeling that whatever he says, Scorpius will do this – whatever this is – anyway.

“Whatever you’re doing,” he says sharply, with all the strength he can muster, “do it safely.” He runs his fingers round the band of his wedding ring and closes his eyes for a moment. “I can’t lose you too.”

He feels Scorpius draw himself up straight behind him, hears him sniff, compose himself, try to become everything he should be, apparently not realising that he’s already so much more than enough.

“Yes, sir.”

Draco spins round and steps up to him, robes swirling, forcing himself to make eye contact. “For Voldemort and Valour.”

Scorpius takes a very deep breath, lifts his chin, and presses his wrists together in a V that looks so strong and convincing. “For Voldemort and Valour,” he says, solid and determined even through his tears.

Draco nods, trying to convey everything in that one movement: pride, love, the desperate need for him to come back alive. Then he turns and flees the room, because while this incredible, startling version of his son may be brave enough for this, he’s not and never has been.


End file.
